South America!

We just finished up a 3 week mini-unit on South America during the first quarter of the 19th Century.  

We were able to learn about Simon Bolivar, the South American countries' push for independence from the European powers (mostly Spain), all kinds of geography of South America, Madison and Monroe as presidents of the United States, all of the States that entered the Union during that time and the Missouri Compromise, Adoniram and Ann Judson as some of the first American foreign missionaries, and we read so many great literature choices.

***Note, the Judson's were not in South America :)...I can see how from the above sentence it might sound that way.  They were in Burma.  We studied them though because we have been studying the first 20+ years of 19th Century history and they were working in Burma during that time period.

Sandwiched in there were some great lessons in Math, Writing, Art, and Science as well. 

All together another enjoyable 3 weeks of school.  Wow!  Nine weeks done this year already!

Working on our South American Gaucho craft from "The Story of the World" Activity Book.  We use "The Story of the World" as a read aloud each week.

Gwangi, while I was reading, not only colored his gaucho...he made a diorama.  It was complete with a wrangling rope (it's taped to the gaucho's hand), a cow (can you see it to the right of the gaucho), and the background is the night sky.

A pretend island with volcanoes that Gwangi made for some of his "character stories." I tell you what, this boy is so creative!

One of the 3 maps we did during our South America unit.  This map was just covering the eastern side of the continent.

Working on our maps.

We used some of Confessions of a Homeschooler's "Expedition Earth" materials for our flag work.  She didn't have all of the flags for all of the countries of South America though, it was just an overview study.  SO, we looked the other ones up on line and drew them on the opposite side of the paper.

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/world-geography

Sissi, coloring in her hand drawn flags. She does such a good job with her artwork.

Krypto and his country flags.

As we were studying Madison and Monroe, we learned about the States that joined the Union during their presidencies.  Again, we used the coloring sheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler's "Roadtrip USA."  Our curriculum, Tapestry of Grace, is a chronological curriculum, so we just reordered the worksheets from geographical regions to chronological by the dates they became states.

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/u-s-geography

Looking for the capitol of Maine in our atlas.  I showed the kids where Ft. Kent was Melanie...I promise :).

Working on our Math U See, Beta, Lesson 13...column addition.

She was patiently waiting for me to finish up something with Gwangi, so she took out a puzzle.

One of our Tapestry literature books was "The Swiss Family Robinson."  It recommended reading a Children's Illustrated Classics version; but, the library didn't have one.  SO, Krypto read the full, unabridged book....all 40+ chapters of it.  What a trooper!

We also enjoy the "Children Just Like Me" book that he is using as a surface to write on his Activity Page.  It has wonderful pictures and stories about real children in about 30+ countries around the world.  We got it to go along with the "Expedition Earth" curriculum.

One of our art projects, a carousel horse.  We are using "Drawing with Children" by Mona Brookes.  This is Krypto's horse, and you can see the top and bottom of the carousel and the things in the background that are "dizzy" he said because you are going around and around.

Gwangi on his carousel horse, with windows behind his carousel.

Sissi's horse, I LOVE the color combo and the polka dots on her horse.  You can see where she got it wet...I don't think she knew there was water on the table.

Just a few of the books we read this week.  The "Donald Duck" trip around South America was an awesome read aloud!!!!  So glad we brought it with us.

Krypto wanted to be the teacher so much, that I finally gave in and let him "have his day."  He did an excellent job, came up with a schedule and got through all the work.  They had a ball.

Krypto made this "dot to dot" for Sissi.  She was able to connect a dot each time she wrote and said the sound of the letter "C" correctly.  Of course, it made a castle.

He wrote some column addition problems for Gwangi to work on for his Math.

They played a review game about Simon Bolivar from "The Story of the World" Activity Book.

This was what the floor looked like after he had played Math War with Gwangi and made 3 letter words with the letter cards for Sissi.

Another art project, this one was done by Gwangi.  He and Krypto love Tintin comics.

Thanks for taking the time to look through all of our school pictures!

I hope you enjoyed them.